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In addition to this episode’s small list of big things, Josepha Haden Chomphosy reviews the upcoming 5.9 WordPress release and its Full Site Editing features.

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

• Editor: Dustin Hartzler
• Logo: Beatriz Fialho
• Production: Chloé Bringmann
• Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

References

WordPress 5.9 Planning 

5.9 Target Features

Gallery Block Refactor Dev Notes

The Cathedral and the Bazaar, 19 Lessons of Open Source

WordPress Translation Day

WordCamp US 2021

Letters to an open source contributor, by Andrea Middleton

Transcript

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  00:10

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing. The podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host, Joseph Haden Chomphosy. Here we go.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  00:40

Today I’m going to take you through a quick look at the final WordPress release of 2021. It will be WordPress 5.9. And there will be a ton of things in it, including a fresh new default theme. And there are a few things that you need to know about it right now. The target release date is December 14, 2021, which means some of our milestones happen around Thanksgiving in the US. And a few significant commercial dates globally, days, like Giving Tuesday and Black Friday, etc. I’ll include a link to the post with all the target dates in the show notes so that you can plan with those in mind. And also in the show notes. I’ll include a link to Matías Ventura’s post that includes the target features for the release. When you look at that post, you’ll notice that you can sort of group things into two big buckets. The two buckets that I grouped them into are themes plus tools, and also better tools. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:31

So bucket number one themes and all their tools. Three things were important for me as I was reading through them. Number one is that there is a default theme. As of the time of this recording, I’ve seen the early concepts for the theme, and I love them. Hopefully, by the time this podcast is published, the post that showcases the look and feel will also be up on make.wordpress.org/design. If it is, I’ll include a link in the show notes to make it easy for everyone to reference. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:04

The second thing is block themes in general. So WordPress 5.8 brought to core WordPress a lot of the infrastructure needed to create block themes. And in this release in WordPress 5.9, much of that infrastructure will be made available for folks who don’t always feel comfortable working in the code. That’s mostly UX and UI changes. So user experience and user interface changes are based on user feedback that we’ve gathered over the last six to eight months. But it also will include the long-awaited navigation block. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:37

The third thing that shows up for me in this first bucket, in the themes and all their tools bucket, is the UX and interface for theme.json. The user interface that we’re making available for theme.json is a major step forward in this project has been referred to as global styles for a few years. And it kind of is what it sounds like on the box, a way for users to tap into that powerful management tool that we have built through theme.JSON. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  03:09

Bucket number two, which I am calling publicly “tools for days.” But also, I refer to it as design tools, block tools, and pattern tools. I had this whole vision of a Wizard of Oz, “lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!” moment, but I couldn’t make it work. So “design tools and block tools and pattern tools Hoorah!” That’s as close as we’re getting. So that’s my first big number two bucket for you. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  03:37

For most of these tools, the best way to describe it is quality of life improvements, lots of streamlining of what’s there, lots of building what’s not. But there’s one that’s substantial and worth digging into a bit more. And that’s the gallery block refactor. The dev note for this already exists. Like before we had the planning round-up post, the dev note was created. And so I will put a link to that in the show notes. But the headline is that this refactor will make the creation and maintenance of image blocks and the gallery block work the same way. If you are a theme or plugin developer, head on over to the dev notes that I have linked below and take some time to get familiar with it. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:20

And then the final thing, which has a bunch of small things in it, but will make a huge impact for all of our users overall, is that we’re working on more intuitive and responsive tools on blocks. That has come up frequently in our user testing again over the last six to eight months. And we are going to chip away at that long list of needs that we have in those particular toolsets. And that’s it. So that’s a really big broad look at what we’re trying to get into the final release of the year.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:58

I  know that when I say like this is our hoped for stuff. This is our best guess at the moment. Sometimes it can feel like we should know that already — I should know already what’s going into the release. And on the one hand, yes, I believe in this list of things that we’re going to put into the release, I think they’re going to be good. But I always refer to it as like the hoped-for things, the things that are on the roadmap, our best targets, because I know that I don’t ever want to ship something that is going to be a worse experience for users. And so I always like to save the space to be able to remove a feature or remove an enhancement, a little bit closer to the time of the release, just to make sure that what we are offering is the best that we can offer. However, as it says right there in the 19 learnings of open source, “if there’s a bug, there’s a job,” right? There’s a lot of tolerance in open source software for shipping, slightly imperfect work. And that’s good. When we ship software that’s a little bit imperfect, it makes it clear how everyone can participate, how everyone could participate, if they could find this WordPress community that supports the CMS. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  06:20

If you’ve never participated in a release and are interested in learning how it goes, you can always follow along on make.wordpress.org/core. And of course, we do a lot of our meetings in the making WordPress, community Slack, which you can find at chat.wordpress.org if you are not already in that particular instance.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  06:49

That brings us now to our small list of big things. I have three things on my list for you. The first one is WP Translation day slash month. For folks who’ve been following along for a bit, you probably noticed that Translation Day has been going on all month long all of September so that we can have small individual local events and bring people into the process of translating WordPress and making WordPress more usable for more people, especially when they don’t necessarily speak English as their first language. It’s a wonderful event. There’s been Translation Day at the end of September for years. And this Translation Month is working its way up to that Translation Day; I will leave a link to the event page in the notes below. And I really encourage you to drop by.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  07:38

The second thing is that WordCamp US is coming up on October 1. It is going to be a virtual event, as so many of our events are right now. Tickets are open. The schedule just got published last week. And so we have a good concept of who is talking about what while we’re there. I suggest you wander over to the schedule. Take a look at anything that might be inspirational to you or anyone who looks like they’re answering questions that you’ve had as you have been trying to build your WordPress business. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  08:08

And then the third thing on my smallest of big things. Some of you may already be aware that Andrea Middleton has left the WordPress project. She has been an absolute fixture in the WordPress open source project for the last ten years. And while we will all miss her terribly, her work has been so influential and so foundational that we actually won’t really feel much like she’s gone. We will see the evidence of her work in everything she does and everything she has done while we build a better and more inclusive WordPress after her. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  08:47

As a final love letter to the community, she published a series of things that she learned about contributing to open source and especially how to contribute to WordPress as an open source project. I’m going to link those in the show notes as well. For anyone who has worked with Andrea for a long time, when you read it, it will just remind you of her voice and will be like a nice warm, comforting hug as she heads on to her next endeavors. And for folks who have never worked with her before. It’s still really excellent information that I think translates into all areas of our work, especially right now as people are moving to distributed work and remote work a bit more. Now I encourage everyone to at least give one or two of them a read. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  09:38

That, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks.

WordPress contributors around the world are celebrating the sixth Global WordPress Translation Day throughout the entire month of September! That’s 30 days dedicated to help and encourage people to translate the software and its related resources. One of the highlights is a series of exciting core global events, starting on September 17 2021 and finishing on the United Nations’ International Translation Day itself on September 30, 2021.

Everyone is welcome to watch these events live on YouTube and to share their translation stories which will be featured during the celebrations and beyond. The global events will be in English and include presentations on how and why to you should join the thousands of translators in the project, tips and tools, interviews, and much more.

There are now 205 locales translating in what is a remarkable open source effort, bringing the opportunities of the software and its community to people in their own native languages.

Inaugural session: Introduction and latest news on WordPress Translation

Friday, September 17, 2021 at 10:00 UTC
We will start the global events with a panel featuring the latest update on what is happening in the world of WordPress polyglots. Panellists will include translators Petya Raykovska and Erica Varlese. There will be a video demonstration on how to translate WordPress, a short presentation on translation statistics, a run down of upcoming events, and more.

Watch the event live on YouTube (link below) – sign-up for notifications in the video stream right now so you don’t miss it when it goes live! 

Right after this session at 11:00 UTC, there will be a ‘drop-in’ translation sprint on Zoom video-conferencing, open to all. Anyone can join and hang out virtually with your Polyglots friends from all around the world and translate WordPress in your own language! RSVP for the session now!

Check out our other exciting global events

Sunday, September 19, 2021 12:00 UTC

Panel on Polyglots Tools
Join Jesús Amieiro, Peter Smits, Vlad Timotei, and Vibgy Joseph to talk about the tools they’ve contributed to or developed to help translators and translation editors.

Tuesday, September 21, 2021 11:00 UTC

Panel on Open Source Translation Communities (YouTube link – opens in a new tab)
Join Zé Fontainhas (WordPress), Ali Darwich (WordPress), Michal Stanke (Mozilla), and Satomi Tsujita (Hyperledger Fabric) to learn about nurturing translation communities.

Thursday, September 30, 2021 16:00 UTC

Closing Party – Why do you translate?
Our finale event for 2021 with emcee Abha Thakor. It will feature highlights from some of the local and global WordPress Translation Day events, highlight important statistics from the month, and share translator’s personal stories.

It will be followed by an after party celebration for anyone who has taken place in the event or is a translator for the project. Book now for the session on Zoom.

Ideas on how to get involved this September

There’s lots of ways to take part – discover this list of ideas.

You can also nominate translation contributors to be featured in this year’s celebrations.

Help us spread the word about #WPTranslationDay

• Share what you are translating using the #WPTranslationDay hashtag on: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn!
• You can also find images and translator badges in our Media Kit to share during September.

For more information on the 2021 WordPress Translation Day celebrations, check the WordPress Translation Day website.

Props to @webcommsat, @harishanker, @lmurillom, @oglekler, @meher, @nalininonstopnewsuk, @evarlese

WordPress 5.8.1 is now available!

This security and maintenance release features 60 bug fixes in addition to 3 security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 5.4 have also been updated.

WordPress 5.8.1 is a short-cycle security and maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.9.

You can download WordPress 5.8.1 by downloading from WordPress.org, or visit your Dashboard → Updates and click Update Now.

If you have sites that support automatic background updates, they’ve already started the update process.

Security Updates

3 security issues affect WordPress versions between 5.4 and 5.8. If you haven’t yet updated to 5.8, all WordPress versions since 5.4 have also been updated to fix the following security issues:

• Props @mdawaffe, member of the WordPress Security Team for their work fixing a data exposure vulnerability within the REST API.
• Props to Michał Bentkowski of Securitum for reporting a XSS vulnerability in the block editor.
• The Lodash library has been updated to version 4.17.21 in each branch to incorporate upstream security fixes.

In addition to these issues, the security team would like to thank the following people for reporting vulnerabilities during the WordPress 5.8 beta testing period, allowing them to be fixed prior to release:

• Props Evan Ricafort for reporting a XSS vulnerability in the block editor discovered during the 5.8 release’s beta period.
• Props Steve Henty for reporting a privilege escalation issue in the block editor.

Thank you to all of the reporters for privately disclosing the vulnerabilities. This gave the WordPress security team time to fix the vulnerabilities before WordPress sites could be attacked.

For more information, browse the full list of changes on Trac, or check out the version 5.8.1 HelpHub documentation page.

Thanks and props!

The 5.8.1 release was led by Jonathan Desrosiers and Evan Mullins.

In addition to the security researchers and release squad members mentioned above, thank you to everyone who helped make WordPress 5.8.1 happen:

2linctools, Adam Zielinski, Alain Schlesser, Alex Lende, alexstine, AlGala, André, Andrei Draganescu, Andrew Ozz, Ankit Panchal, Anthony Burchell, Anton Vlasenko, Ari Stathopoulos, Bruno Ribaric, Carolina Nymark, Daisy Olsen, Daniel Richards, Daria, David Anderson, David Biňovec, David Herrera, Dominik Schilling, Ella van Durpe, Enchiridion, Evan Mullins, Gary Jones, George Mamadashvili, Greg Ziółkowski, Héctor Prieto, ianmjones, Jb Audras, Jeff Bowen, Joe Dolson, Joen A., John Blackbourn, Jonathan Desrosiers, JuanMa Garrido, Juliette Reinders Folmer, Kai Hao, Kapil Paul, Kerry Liu, Kevin Fodness, Marcus Kazmierczak, Mark-k, Matt, Michael Adams (mdawaffe), Mike Schroder, moch11, Mukesh Panchal, Nik Tsekouras, Paal Joachim Romdahl, Pascal Birchler, Paul Bearne, Paul Biron, Peter Wilson, Petter Walbø Johnsgård, Radixweb, Rahul Mehta, ramonopoly, ravipatel, Riad Benguella, Robert Anderson, Rodrigo Arias, Sanket Chodavadiya, Sergey Biryukov, Stephen Bernhardt, Stephen Edgar, Steve Henty, terraling, Timothy Jacobs, tmatsuur, TobiasBg, Tonya Mork, Toro_Unit (Hiroshi Urabe), Vlad T, wb1234, and WFMattR.

I really believe in WordPress’ mission to democratize publishing. And I, for one, will never stop learning about what gives people more access to the software, and what makes the software more usable, and especially how we can combine usability with accessibility in a way that puts form and function on a level playing field.

That was Josepha Haden on the “The Art and Science of Accessibility” episode of the WP Briefing Podcast, talking about accessibility and exploring how it applies to the WordPress open source software. You will find that many of our updates from August 2021 tie in closely with the core principles of access, accessibility, and usability. Read on to find out more!

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Join the 2021 WordPress Translation Day Celebrations in September

Join WordPress contributors around the world on WordPress Translation Day celebrations for the entire month of September! The sixth edition of #WPTranslationDay – which is a cross-team effort led by the Polyglots and Marketing Teams, has a host of fun programs aimed at helping WordPress speak all languages of the world. Want to join the fun? Here’s how.

• Join your local translation event and collaborate on efforts to translate WordPress! Can’t find a local event in your area? Why don’t you organize one on your own?
• Join one of our global events from September 17-30! We have exciting sessions on polyglots tools and open source translation communities, to name a few.
• You can help translate WordPress to your own language, in your own time, this month! Here’s how!
• Share what you are translating using the #WPTranslationDay hashtag on social media, to build excitement around the event! Don’t forget to amplify posts about the event on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn!

 For more information, check out the translation day website and the Polyglots blog.

WordPress Release Updates

The Core Team commenced work on the next major release – WordPress 5.9. The team aims to ship some cool features such as intrinsic web design to blocks, improved block patterns, navigation menus, better design tools, edit flows for block themes, and a new interface for theme.json. Check out the WordPress 5.9 development cycle to know more. This release is set to go out in December 2021. The team is also working on shipping a minor release WordPress 5.8.1 –– its release candidate is already out and the final release will launch on September 8.

Want to contribute to WordPress core? Join the #core channel, follow the Core Team blog, and check out the team handbook. Don’t miss the Core Team chats on Wednesdays at 5 AM and 8 PM UTC. You can also help translate WordPress to your local language – and what better time to do it, than in September, during the translation month celebrations? Another fun way to contribute would be to share about WordPress 5.8 on social media!

Say Hello to Gutenberg Versions 11.2 and 11.3

We launched Gutenberg version 11.2 and version 11.3 this month. Version 11.2 adds customizing/color options to the search block, a flex layout for the group block, and a new button for creating posts as part of the publishing flow. Version 11.3 offers a new dimensions panel (replacing the spacing panel) with more styling options, dimensions control for the feature image block, and significant performance improvements for block inserters.

Want to get involved in building Gutenberg? Follow the Core Team blog, contribute to Gutenberg on GitHub, and join the #core-editor channel in the Make WordPress Slack. The “What’s next in Gutenberg” post offers more details on the latest updates. 

Get Excited about WordCamp US 2021

The biggest WordCamp in North America – WordCamp US 2021- is barely a month away. Get your (free) tickets, if you haven’t already! The organizing team has opened up calls for musicians, contributor stories, and media partners. Check out the event website and follow the event on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to stay updated on all that #WCUS news.

Important Announcements/Updates

• Support for the Classic Editor plugin will be extended for a full year until 2022!
• The Themes Team published a feedback summary on the proposed requirement changes for WordPress theme review, and will soon be updating the handbook and review tools. You will find more context in their meeting notes.
• The Plugins Team corrected inaccurate plugin statistics in the plugin directory.
• Check out the results of the FSE Theme Design (theme.json) survey!

Feedback/Testing Requests from Contributor Teams

• The Testing Team is requesting testing help for a few tickets and patches in WordPress. The team is also looking for volunteers to audit and update Core testing instructions across different Make sites.
• The Community Team shared a proposal on planning online-only recurring global do_action charity hackathons. Share your feedback by September 24.
• The Training Team is also exploring the possibility of adding learner achievements (on learn.wordpress.org) on WP Profiles and is requesting feedback from the community.
• Help the Marketing Team’s outreach research by filling out this 2 question survey on how you search for WordPress release information. If you have any favorite features from the latest release (WordPress 5.8) let the team know by completing this short form.
• Version 18.1 of WordPress for iOS and Android are now available for testing!

WordPress Event Updates

• WordCamp Florianopolis 2021 was held on August 11-12, 2021. The event, which sold 390 tickets, had 11 speakers and 4 sponsors. Catch the event recap on YouTube!
• WordCamp Galicia 2021 is being held from September 30 – October 2, 2021! 
• do_action Karnataka 2021 was held from August 7-15, 2021. Check out the recap!
• The Core Team organized a hallway hangout to compare the ‘experimental’ Gutenberg navigation feature with the built-in core feature. The team decided to wait until feature parity with core nav menus, to move the feature from experiments to the main plugin.
• The Diverse Speakers Training group (#WPDiversity) of the Community Team held their first “Allyship for WordPress Event Organizers” workshop on August 19, 2021. The event had 13 attendees from 6 countries who reported a 52% increase in preparedness to help create inclusive WordPress events. Stay tuned for their next workshop in November!

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Further Reading

• Don’t miss this blog post on Widgets in WordPress 5.8 and beyond!
• The Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach program wrapped up its ninth challenge –– Handling HigherEd Headers, on September 1. Keep an eye out for test results and future testing call announcements!
• The Test Team is attempting to modernize PHPUnit tests for WordPress.
• The Accessibility Team is testing the navigation block for accessibility feedback.
• The Docs Team launched a new repository for tracking issues with WordPress documentation: https://github.com/WordPress/Documentation-Issue-Tracker
• The Training Team finalized brand guidelines for learn.wordpress.org. The team is also working on setting up Micro courses for Learn.
• The Openverse Team is exploring Multistage docker builds as a solution to better set up waveforms for audio search results in the Openverse tool. 

Have a story that we should include in the next “Month in WordPress” post? Please submit it using this form. 

The following folks contributed to August’s Month in WordPress:  @evarlese @meher @nao @jillbinder @webcommsat

This month, our team released features in the block editor that give your site a little breathing room: spacing controls for buttons and paragraphs. And the List View tool keeps getting better with drag-and-drop.

Powerful Expanded Button Formatting

Buttons never looked so good with custom padding.

Padding is empty space within the border of a block, which can bring clarity to your content and adjust the balance of the page’s layout.

Custom control over a button’s spacing, color, and aggressiveness of the corner radii — all within the visual editor — can elevate it as a powerful design element of your website.

Make a punchy set of buttons themed in your brand’s colors or place an effective Call to Action button to attract your visitors.

To try, add a button with the Buttons block, and in the block’s menu go to the Dimensions section and select Padding. Adjust the padding uniformly around the button by changing the one value. If you click the unlink icon, you can adjust the four sides independently. Experiment with changing the Border and Color as well. To quickly create a grid of similar buttons, select the Options icon (…) in the toolbar above the block in your post editor and select Duplicate.

New Spacing Controls

Manually adjust the padding of other blocks as well, like a Paragraph block.

Custom-indent an entire section of text or generously pad a small amount of text for a big effect.

Experiment by wrapping a couple paragraphs with a Group block. Select the Group block and in the block’s menu go to the Dimensions section and select Padding. You can adjust the padding in this block just as you did with the button.

Drag-and-Drop for Persistent List View

We mentioned updates to the List View in June and July.

Accessible in the top-left menu of your post editor, the List View is the table of contents of all the blocks used in your post — select the diagonal hamburger icon to open this list. For deeply nested layouts, you can expand and collapse certain sections of this list, making navigation more efficient.

Now, with drag-and-drop functionality, you can reposition blocks within your post. Drag-and-drop a block within the list to reposition it, but if you prefer to organize visually, you can also drag the block’s label from the list into the post editor. List View is more powerful than ever to reorganize a post.

Keep Building, Keep Exploring

Your feedback is crucial to expanding the block editor’s capabilities, so keep it coming. Watch here for more updates, and in the meantime, go forth and create!

This month, our team released features in the block editor that give your site a little breathing room: spacing controls for buttons and paragraphs. And the List View tool keeps getting better with drag-and-drop.

Powerful Expanded Button Formatting

Buttons never looked so good with custom padding.

Padding is empty space within the border of a block, which can bring clarity to your content and adjust the balance of the page’s layout.

Custom control over a button’s spacing, color, and aggressiveness of the corner radii — all within the visual editor — can elevate it as a powerful design element of your website.

Make a punchy set of buttons themed in your brand’s colors or place an effective Call to Action button to attract your visitors.

To try, add a button with the Buttons block, and in the block’s menu go to the Dimensions section and select Padding. Adjust the padding uniformly around the button by changing the one value. If you click the unlink icon, you can adjust the four sides independently. Experiment with changing the Border and Color as well. To quickly create a grid of similar buttons, select the Options icon (…) in the toolbar above the block in your post editor and select Duplicate.

New Spacing Controls

Manually adjust the padding of other blocks as well, like a Paragraph block.

Custom-indent an entire section of text or generously pad a small amount of text for a big effect.

Experiment by wrapping a couple paragraphs with a Group block. Select the Group block and in the block’s menu go to the Dimensions section and select Padding. You can adjust the padding in this block just as you did with the button.

Drag-and-Drop for Persistent List View

We mentioned updates to the List View in June and July.

Accessible in the top-left menu of your post editor, the List View is the table of contents of all the blocks used in your post — select the diagonal hamburger icon to open this list. For deeply nested layouts, you can expand and collapse certain sections of this list, making navigation more efficient.

Now, with drag-and-drop functionality, you can reposition blocks within your post. Drag-and-drop a block within the list to reposition it, but if you prefer to organize visually, you can also drag the block’s label from the list into the post editor. List View is more powerful than ever to reorganize a post.

Keep Building, Keep Exploring

Your feedback is crucial to expanding the block editor’s capabilities, so keep it coming. Watch here for more updates, and in the meantime, go forth and create!

Before the release of WordPress 5.0 in 2018, the Classic Editor plugin was published to help ease the transition to the new block editor. At the time, we promised to support the plugin through 2021 and adjust if needed as the deadline got closer. After discussing this with Matt, it’s clear that continuing to support the plugin through 2022 is the right call for the project as well as the community.

Still, if you’ve been putting off using the block editor, this is an excellent time to give it another shot. Since it first appeared in 2018, hundreds of WordPress contributors have made a lot of updates based on user feedback. You will be pleasantly surprised at how far it’s come!

Big thanks to everyone who has been working on WordPress, Gutenberg, and the Classic Editor plugin. And thank you to every WordPress user and tester who has provided the feedback we need to make the software even better.

~ Josepha

Returning to the block editor for the first time in a long time? You can give feedback early in the process by joining the outreach program! Looking at it for the first time ever? Get your bearings with some workshops or check out this demo!

Ever wonder what it’s like behind the scenes of WP Briefing? Listen in on this episode for a little levity and Josepha’s bloopers.

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

• Editor: Dustin Hartzler
• Logo: Beatriz Fialho
• Production: Chloé Bringmann
• Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

Transcript

[contemporary intro music]

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  00:10

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a bonus briefing. Normally I talk to you about WordPress and stuff, but I figured that we all need a little levity in our lives right now. So today’s episode is actually just a series of bloopers and mistakes that I’ve made while recording. When I was preparing for this podcast, no one mentioned the deep weirdness of standing alone in your closet talking to yourself, nor did they realize just how lost I can get in the surpassingly, lovely lyricism of a lilting line, and then just have no idea what I’m supposed to be reading in the script that I wrote for myself. So, my dear friends, I hope these bring you a little laugh. And if we’ve got any luck at all, you may also hear me singing to myself, my computer, or about how terrible my talking just was. Here we go!

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:12

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a bonus briefing. I know I wasn’t going to sit boop, boop. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:21

I messed up the thing where I’m talking about how I mess up, of course. I’m going to do it one more time, and you can choose whatever is a reasonable thing there. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:33

Because we had such a lengthy WP Briefing, WordPress, I’m going to just start that over again. Sorry, everyone.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:42

My friends. Oh, no. I don’t know how I end my own show. How do I end my own show? There we go. Sorry. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:52

That was a weird way to say that. I’m going to start over again from the transition. And then we’re just going to go straight through to the end. Maybe.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:03

The names that… I sound weird. I sound like I don’t know what my words are. And I said I wrote the words. I said I was all going to go in one go, and I’m a liar today. Okay, here we go. For realsies!

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:16

Final first last take. Here we go. Sorry, I made myself laugh. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:22

Matt Mullenweg. And, and I, I’m also in that group. I don’t know why I said that like it was a surprise. I have me too. I’m also in there. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:33

Ugh, I ran out of air. For reasons, it was a short sentence. I don’t know why I ran out of air. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:43

Coming out on April 14. That’s not true. It’s April 13. Right?

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:50

On the form below to share the. Pfft – what are the things! 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:58

This is WP Briefing episode seven, no title because I don’t know what to call it because I gave it a title already. I gave it two titles, and then couldn’t remember why I gave it those titles. So I’ll come up with a title before we publish it. But I also have no idea what it is. I’m going to ask for help. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  03:17

Testing project since I have too many commas, and I really believed in my comma when I said it. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  03:24

Prior to Gutenberg… pfft. Open source software like WordPress. I was going to smash that sentence into half a sentence. I was going to say when you know what you’re workussing on you have a solution which is not my friends of thing. So, I am just going to say the sentence again. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  03:47

I was sitting over here wringing my hands for some reason during that entire list. And so if you can hear me wringing my hands, which would be a whole new height of anxiety for anyone, you let me know, and I will rerecord that also.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:00

Get a concept of. Nope, this is a lie. Get a concept of where to get your tickets is the silliest thing. I’m starting over from the small list of big things. Also, because I got too excited about how big my list is. I am going to get that excited again. But I will try not to shout about it. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:17

“Humming intro song” Dun dun dun dun dun. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:23

Sorry, I had to scroll up, and I try not to scroll up when I’m talking in case maybe my whole computer turns into a microphone. Sorry, I’m just going to keep going because this has been a fine take so far. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:34

Mercy! I have words that I can say with my mouth. They aren’t these words today. It seems.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:45

Build up to… Oh my goodness. My stomach grumbled, and this microphone, I know,  picked it up. And so I’m going to redo bullet two so that we don’t just have a small monster under the bed in the middle of the podcast. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  05:03

Also, like DEI, I feel s—Eh – maybe I should say, DEI, somewhere in there, so it’s clear for people cause I’m talking to people and not actually a screen. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  05:17

Before I joined the WordPress project, the majority of my work with accessibility was in the context of the digital divide. Now, when talking about the digital divide, there are three concepts around quote-unquote, getting things to people. And those concepts are… I guess I could say the thing, hold on one second, I can do it. I feel like I’m chopping up my words like I’m not really breathing very well. So I apologize. But here we go again.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  05:58

Don’t include that one. Sorry, I’m so nervous about this episode that, like, my mouth is getting dry, and I worry that you can hear it, and it drives me nuts every time I hear podcasters with a dry mouth, and you can just like hear it clicking and always stresses me out. I’m like, someone should give that poor thing a drink of water. And I just know I’m going to feel that way about myself later. And so I’m trying to stay hydrated, but it also means that I have to stop every two paragraphs and take a drink of water. I apologize for that interlude. I am about to start again, at my next section, which is like, halfway through.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  06:39

Also, I learned that you can hear me swallowing my water with this microphone because it is a spectacular microphone. And so, I apologize for that as well. All right. Here I go. I’m going to do it all in one take. Watch me. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  06:56

But I also have questions, especially about how to move everything forward. Mm-hmm. Whoops. I put especially in the wrong spot. But I also thought…

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  07:10

 Ta da, we did it. Gosh, that’s a short one. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  07:16

I did it. Where’s my where’s my turning offing button. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  07:22

Tada! And scene and done.

Last summer, as the world adjusted to pandemic life, Jessica Petrie knew that she had to make changes to how she ran her studio, Yoga Next Door. 

She quickly figured out how to stream her classes from her studio in the beautiful woods of Maine, and adapted her business model to offer video learning and online payment. While looking forward to a return to in-real-life classes and retreats, she refused to be set back by the pandemic, and found a way to allow her students to continue their yoga practice from the safety of their homes. 

We are always learning from customers like Jessica — or Steven Gaither, Wali Pitt, and Tolly Carr of HBCU Gameday. The trio doubled down on understanding their growing audience, while staying focused on their important coverage of sports and culture at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Their expert use of SEO tools has helped them increase site traffic along the way. 

They are not alone: many WordPress.com creators have grown their audiences while publishing on social and cultural movements around the world, signaling their resilience, adaptability, and impact in challenging times.

We are proud to feature Jessica Petrie, HBCU Gameday, and other inspiring customers at the second Official WordPress.com Growth Summit, on Tuesday, August 17 (Wednesday, August 18, for Asia-Pacific timezones). You can still buy your ticket and learn from these incredible customers:

Muslim Girl

Amani al-Khatahtbeh started a website, Muslim Girl, and a movement. Whether highlighting prominent Muslim women in the Olympics or in the media, or diving into issues like human trafficking and marriage in modern Islam culture, Amani has created a platform focused on raising awareness, amplifying young voices, and fostering open dialogue. Beyond this, Amani is building a community around the diverse identities of Muslim women in the West — on #MuslimWomensDay (heading into its sixth year next March) and every day.

CalMatters

CEO Neil Chase and VP of Product Strategy Kim Fox will talk about their nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom, CalMatters, with our own Kinsey Wilson, the head of Newspack (the open-source publishing and revenue-generating platform for news organizations.) CalMatters not only covers policy and politics in California; they also help empower emerging publishers with their digital platforms. We’ll learn how they started, how they sustain their operation, and what they see ahead in digital news.

Zaloa Languages 

Anja Spilker is the founder of Mexico-based company Zaloa Languages, which offers online language learning with native teachers to an international audience. Anja is that rare and powerful combination of founder, CEO, and influencer. She’s equally adept at sharing her life behind the scenes as she is in shifting her business model, significantly increasing revenue, and creating a compelling brand with a sophisticated ecommerce approach. Listening to her tell the story of Zaloa Languages will be a masterclass on its own.

HBCU Gameday 

With HBCU Gameday, Steven J. Gaither spotted an underrepresented niche in the vast sports media landscape. He teamed up with experienced journalist Tolly Carr and digital technologist and video producer Wali Pitt to create a publication with an important focus on HBCU sports stories of culture and substance.  They’re hands-on in understanding how their audience finds them, all while adopting new formats (video!) seamlessly.

Workprint

David Nitzche is a master of short-form storytelling, and he’s making a business out of it. We’ll learn how he weaves trailers, music videos, and creative for Apple, Marvel, National Geographic, Red Bull, Netflix, Google, and more. David will also talk about how he’s evolved his career from freelance editor to launching his own post-production studio, Workprint, in Los Angeles in the middle of the pandemic.

Yoga Next Door 

If the story of how Jessica borrowed her son’s GoPro camera to quickly experiment with offering her classes by online video doesn’t inspire you, Yoga Next Door’s return to real-life retreats will. But you just may learn most from Jessica’s  on-the-fly business savvy, including how she set up a digital library for customers while continuing to share her mindfulness and yoga expertise willingly. (So willingly that she’ll offer attendees a mid-Summit yoga and mindfulness session.)

STATURE

Which of Nick Engvall’s ventures can you learn most from? We found him via Sneaker History, the podcast he launched with and for fellow sneakerheads, drawing on his own content-creating background with brands like StockX and Finish Line. But we’ll also explore his creative agency STATURE, his hands-on thought leadership for podcasters and creators, his advocacy of WordPress, and how he finds time for it all!

If we have time, that is. Because all of these speakers have many stories to tell and ideas to share, and we have a packed Summit agenda that also includes sessions with our own talented Happiness Engineers, who will lead workshops on blogging, podcasting, building an audience, and SEO.

We hope you’ll join us at the Summit this week — and just as importantly, we hope you’ll keep working on your thing, too. We’d love to feature you someday soon.

The block editor makes site creation fast and flexible. Now, you can use that same huge library of blocks available when editing your pages and posts to edit and customize your sidebars, headers, and footers.

What are Widgets?

Sidebars, headers, and footers on your WordPress.com website are powered by widgets. Widgets are small but powerful modules to arrange and display content and tools around the edges of your posts and pages. Until now, widgets have been the best way to insert a variety of content — from calendars to social icons — into the sidebar, header, and footer of your site.

Flexibility with the Block Editor

Setting up and managing widgets was a very static and often tricky process. The block editor you’re familiar with in pages and posts is now part of the widgets editor. This aims to put editing power in your control.

You’re no longer limited to just widgets — any block is for your choosing.

For example, in your sidebar, header, and footer, you can now:

• Tweak the structure by adding columns or spacers
• Quickly add content like a Search block or a header
• Format content via colors and rich text editing

What About Older Widgets?

Every widget that exists today will be incorporated into blocks.

But don’t worry — your current widgets will still work and can be used alongside your other blocks. Even legacy widgets that don’t have a block equivalent will work. Just use your preferred method of inserting a block, search for the widget’s name, and insert.

Getting Started

If you’ve never edited the content in your sidebar, header, or footer, now is a great time to experiment!

To edit the content, go to Appearance → Customize → Widgets and you’ll now be able to directly add widgets and any blocks, while previewing exactly what they’ll look like on your site.

This update is just one more step on the way to a more intuitive site editing experience. Go forth and create!